Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.
Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.
Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie. And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.
He is planning an authoritarian agenda and would take care to eliminate any internal dissent.
Eight years ago, Benjamin Wittes wrote:
The soft spot, the least tyrant-proof part of the government, is the U.S. Department of Justice and the larger law enforcement and regulatory apparatus of the United States government. The first reason you should fear a Donald Trump presidency is what he would do to the ordinary enforcement functions of the federal government, not the most extraordinary ones.
Alex Leary and Sadie Gurman at WSJ:
...Trump has repeatedly signaled he could seek retribution against his perceived enemies. This has alarmed many Americans, including some former supporters who think Trump during a second term would be savvier and more determined to bend the institution to his whims. Trump has said winning in November would be his form of retribution.
Trump and his allies have been considering candidates for attorney general who share his expansive view of presidential authority and would be more willing to do the White House’s bidding. President Biden and other presidents before him have sought to portray the Justice Department as independent of politics, taking pains to avoid even the appearance of seeking favor with the nation’s top cop.
Trump wants a loyalist, people familiar with his thinking said, and he has openly expressed regret over his choices in his first term, Jeff Sessions and William Barr. Sessions stepped aside from the department’s probe of the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, angering the president, and Barr refused to pursue Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud in 2020.
Among those under consideration to lead the department in a second Trump term are John Ratcliffe, who served under Trump as director of national intelligence; Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri, a former state attorney general; and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, according to people familiar with discussions. These talks have included informal musings by Trump, who has mentioned Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton....
Moves Trump has suggested include giving political appointees at the Justice Department greater oversight of the FBI, including its traditionally independent director, shrinking the size and power of its Washington headquarters and affording more resources instead to agents in the field. Some allies have suggested reviewing all of the FBI’s investigations and terminating those they find objectionable.
People familiar with Trump’s policy goals said he would give priority to religious rights over LGBTQ protections and that he would go after what they see as a left-wing ideology that drowns out other voices on college campuses.
